And here’s Australia via France…
[Video][Website]
[4.86]
Alfred Soto: A Sarah Cracknell cadence — expressing extraordinary feelings in an ordinary way — empowers the first couple of minutes. Add the electrostomp and guitar fill and a performance pregnant with seriocomic possibilities emerges. This isn’t it. Imagine Shania Twain making like Katy Perry.
[5]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: You can’t grant a title with that much high drama statement and violently neuter the song it hosts; is this secular pap?
[4]
Brad Shoup: The title intrigued me. Is it a compliment? An accusation? I’M STILL NOT SURE. Things were fine until the jarring chord change that cordons the guitar ping from the dance-pop part. Then it’s a lot of stuff about being young or older and maybe there are two minds here but it seems safer to call this a mess.
[5]
Jessica Doyle: On the first run-through, here’s how I heard the first verse: “You took my hand and then you let me leave / You said, don’t light up the ruins, so that’s what I did.” Which sounded much stranger, more ambivalent, and more interesting than what’s actually going on. She’s going for the joy of finding constancy, a space at once exciting and safe, and how rare is that? But the celebration gets lost in a mishmash of clichés.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m confused. The Eurovision semifinals aren’t for months.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: This feels as if it it’s halfway to being the inspirational love song it wants to be, but the dynamics feel wrong. The transition from the calm and effective quiet verses to the BIG EXPLOSIVE CHORUS doesn’t work, not least because the chorus is more a sparkler in your hand than a set of fireworks. I actually like sparklers, but the song is stretching to be more. Maybe it’s that the chorus takes a few lines to get going, losing momentum from the first line and not recovering it until the third or fourth. I like the tune a fair bi, but it needed to be either bigger or smaller; in the face of something bigger, the distinction between sweet and corny wouldn’t matter so much (it’s both, for what it’s worth), and something smaller would have conveyed the intimacy better.
[6]
Rebecca A. Gowns: I recently rewatched one of my favorite movies, Cassavetes’ “Opening Night,” and aging women are on my mind again. In the movie, Gena Rowlands is an actress “of a certain age,” approximately in her mid-to-late-40s, not yet menopausal (and offended by the idea that she could be considered so). She unravels and puts herself together throughout the film, and even when she’s back together, you get the feeling that she’s staring into a grave with her name on it. Aging is the enemy of man, but it’s a taunting and always-looming enemy for women — especially women in the limelight. Tina Arena is the same age as Gena Rowlands was when that movie was made (1976-77): 46. A new single at this age should be surprising. And yet, there’s been a peculiar trend lately, and it’s popping up in an industry that is known for being particularly fickle and fleeting: Kylie (45), Madonna (55), and Cher (67) all recorded new albums this year. To stay relevant, there’s always the pressure for older popstars to rely on a Jenna-Maroney-esque blithe recreation of youth signifiers, such as glowing smooth skin, miniskirts, cheerleader chants, and pink lipstick. Tina’s got all of that in this music video, but she also carries her age with grace, even a degree of ambivalence. It carries over to her voice, and it serves the song well. Sure, the sound is all servicable generic movie trailer pop. Yet there’s a small distinction: the song material is cozy and domestic (“falling in love with you is coming home, you’re always there”). The fire in this song is not a fireball, nor a firework, but one that gently “lights up the room” — in other words, a hearth. She’s thinking about the longterm (“will you still love me when I’m older?”) then mentions the even longer-term (she cherishes each moment because she knows it could all be “gone tomorrow”). It’s the prelude to “Cut Copy Me“: a declaration of dedication, the inaugral lighting of the lighthouse that they’ve been building together for years. Her experience doesn’t mean she’s finished; it means she’s more ready than ever.
[7]